No matter how much money is exchanged in politics, the law against political candidates soliciting or receiving foreign donations remains ironclad. But Donald Trump, a Nigerian-prince e-mail scam come to life, appears to have taken little note of such mundane considerations as complying with campaign finance laws.

For months, the Trump campaign has been dogged by accusations that it has been soliciting non-U.S. citizens abroad—including a number of foreign politicians—with repeated fundraising requests. “Members of Parliament are being bombarded by electronic communications from Team Trump on behalf of somebody called Donald Trump,” Sir Roger Gale complained to the Speaker of the House Commons in June, according to Politics Home. “Mr. Speaker, I’m all in favor of free speech but I don’t see why colleagues on either side of the House should be subjected to intemperate spam.” Two watchdog groups filed complaints to the F.E.C. alleging that the Trump campaign broke the law.

Apparently, however, Trump’s fundraising team remains as careless as ever. Terri Butler, a member of Australia’s parliament, told The Hill that she had received several e-mails from the Trump campaign, sent to her government account, asking for money. The latest e-mail, dated August 14, invited the M.P. to donate in order to be recognized as an “Executive Member” of the Trump campaign.

It is illegal for candidates to accept or solicit money from foreign governments, and is a serious enough offense to warrant investigation.

According to The Hill, which published its story Tuesday morning, the Trump campaign likely bought the lists containing foreign officials’ names from a third-party vendor. Typically, competent political campaigns take it upon themselves to weed out potentially illegal names from such lists, using programs that block illegal e-mails. An official with the Trump campaign, which previously promised to vet its fundraising lists more carefully, told The Hill that Butler, the Australian M.P., must have signed up to receive campaign notifications, and blamed “scammers” for adding “foreign nationals” to their system.

While Trump’s latest snafu hasn’t risen to the level of other foreign-contributions scandals—the high-water mark remains a 1996 incident in which the Chinese government reportedly gave $300,000 to Bill Clinton’s re-election campaign—the illegal e-mails fit a pattern of naïveté and negligence running through the billionaire’s campaign. Having failed to develop a ground game, build a fund-raising infrastructure, create an advertising campaign, or establish state campaign chairs until two weeks ago, spamming the world’s inboxes seems perfectly on-brand.